"Space isn’t really divided into “me space” and “not-me space.” It’s all one space, and it flows through us. Space is just borrowed. We can’t own it." - —Bodhipaksa

We talk about other people invading my space and how we hate it, as if we owned a piece of it somehow and the importance of personal space. But really, do we own it at all, is it locked away in a container, our body, can we limit how much oozes out and how much is filtered in. NO!

There are even psychologists claiming to know and teach you how to observe if other people are invading your space, as if there was a way to measure, chunks of it and decide what belongs to whom. Academics have even invented the term "space invaders", as if space were made up of invisible aliens. Sometimes academics, especially in the behavioural sciences lose their common sense when trying to invent their so-called science. They even postulate that they can give you guidelines to what is acceptable personal space.

Where’s the boundary between inner air and outer space? Can we hold onto something we think of as our space and not let in what we assume to be the space of the other? We can not say how far space extends, it is just there.
"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the “Universe”—a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness."- Einstein

There is really not a "me space" and "you space", or "outer space" this notion is a delusion we live by in our society. The inner world and outer world are basically intermingled, whether we like it or not. Space is all one space and it flows through us, we don't own it.
​
Once we realize this, we will stop trying to put different people and the environment into boxes, good and bad, for our own comfort. We all share the same space so let's get over ourselves!

The Buddha said, “All I teach is suffering and the end of suffering. This does not always mean physical suffering but mental suffering, the pain of change, loss, aging, and knowing there is an end to our earthly existence. Most of us embrace pleasure but reject suffering in our lives. We see life as a big roulette wheel and crapshoot, and hope we emerge winners and land on pink. Everyday we toss the dice and cross our fingers. Viewing life as a succession of lucky breaks or chances only makes our mental suffering worse.

The more we practice denial and avoidance of the harsher aspects of reality, the more and harder we suffer.
James Patterson wrote, "the secret to understanding Parisians is to know that they are exact opposite of people in LA California. In LA people are raised to be optimistic. full of life, friendly. People who grow up in Paris however, are taught the value of melancholy and an unwavering belief in the superiority of suffering. It's why they have a reputation for being rude.... they honestly believe they are doing you a favour."

Being optimistic and positive is not a bad thing as long as it is real and and your smile doesn't mask tears. As you can see Hollywood is all about the make-belief, unreality, devoid of aging and suffering, full of plastized faces and phoney emotions. The French, as do other other Europeans celebrate the real, wisdom in a face and not a blank expression caused by surgery, even their films have actors that look like real ordinary people with depth and breadth of humanity lining their visages.

Buddha taught that embracing suffering is how you can desist from it, In any experience, even a painful one we can end suffering. Accepting that this life is as is, and saying this is "dukkha", liberates our minds, eases our burden, relaxes our anxiety about whether we will win or lose and what the next moment will bring.

So the sooner we stop pursuing pleasure and are present in what is going on in the moment in our lives, the more capable we will be in dealing appropriately with each situation, the more wisdom and energy we will have to carry on until we are in the pink again. But trying to remain in the pink, despite a change in colour, can stop us from actually enjoying it when it arrives.

It is very liberating to realize, all is good and just let go of the incessant mental control of thinking mind that says,, it must be this way and not that. It is okay to have wants and desires as long as you are not attached to getting them met at all cost. As the song goes you don't always get what you want but you get what you need. You may want to live forever and never be ill, but hey the moon isn't made of cheese.
​
So if you want to stop suffering, relax and try to enjoy the ride, even the bumpy parts.

What is intuition? To me as an artist it is the MUSE, my guiding spirit that gently pulls and prods until I am moving in the right direction, often against my will, my volition. On the one side is what I want and on the other is what I need and the two do not overlap much, but when they do miracles happen, the canvas I completed speaks and is heard. When I insist on defying the MUSE, my canvas lies dead, dormant, unwanted, speechless.

Well, if I only had a better loudspeaker that amplified the MUSE'S voice I would produce nothing but miracles on canvas, and some artists in the past did just that...but the voice has grown weaker as our egotistical intellects took charge and declared they are the voice of reason and all else be hanged.

The MUSE started to wane, shrink and eventually totally disappear, especially in the art world. Conceptualism was born where the Intellect had full reign. And our intellect can be smart, chic, fashionable and extremely cunning, it can even pretend to be the MUSE to confuse the unsuspecting artist and make him/her believe it is really the MUSE speaking, but alas it isn't, as many a canvas will will prove because when you look upon the art, although intellectually titillating it does nothing more. It does not bring your senses alive and put fire in your belly, the way a brilliant art piece can.
So how does one know if your intuition is in communicato with your MUSE? It is by the viewer's reaction to your work and the real beauty of the art piece. By beauty I don't mean candy sickly sweet fluffy meaningless bunny ears...I mean an art piece that says all the hard things we need to hear and at the same time can capture your soul with it's beauty. One of my past art teachers, once said, that even if you paint a piece of turd on canvas you need to make it beautiful.
Why? Because it is life, both smelly and beautiful! And if you try to white-wash with neutrality in either direction as minimalism did, you kill everything that was vibrant and alive in the art piece in the first place. It is not enough to plaster a canvas with gobs of bright colours, then give it a smart title...like this young Canadian artist...who has suddenly sprung to fame due to a successful Gallery Owner and great family connections, Erin Loree.
 
Art has lost its meaning when it stopped being born from Intuition, the MUSE gave up awaiting, it's return, and I think maybe in 2017 there is a little crack in it's shell and we will see who are the artists listening and open to its voice.
Then there is Barbara Kroll who speaks volumes with very little effort, because the MUSE does not need perfect renderings to say what it needs to say, just enough to get the message across and painted with minimal amounts of medium.

As an artist in the Industrial Era we also need to consider making a living in the marketplace, and that I think has been our downfall. Instead of listening to our MUSE, we attempted to produce what we think the marketplace will buy, and unfortunately that has become the standard for art collectors buys, often well rendered meaningless kitsch or/and a conceptually titillating idea, that makes us think that it is real art, like the portrait of Trump in the nude recently purchased by some billionaire in England for one million dollars, just so she can say she has it and achieve some fame herself and not because your eyes are riveted and you can not remove them from watching the work because it renders you speechless and in awe!

One of my favourite artists ,is Egon Schiele with a painting called, 'Mother and Daughter" and others.
It is speaks volumes with simple flowing gestural lines and a few flat shapes of emotive colours.
Art is not just about what appeals to the average joe, it is far more than that, it is transcendent and speaks about things that the average joe hasn't thought of before so that he can can raise himself a bit above his current level of humanity.

Art is the voice of intuition in action.

Art is Intuition in Action
What is intuition? To me as an artist it is the MUSE, my guiding spirit that gently pulls and prods until I am moving in the right direction, often against my will, my volition. On the one side is what I want and on the other is what I need and the two do not overlap much, but when they do miracles happen, the canvas I completed speaks and is heard. When I insist on defying the MUSE, my canvas lies dead, dormant, unwanted, speechless.
Well, if I only had a better loudspeaker that amplified the MUSE'S voice I would produce nothing but miracles on canvas, and some artists in the past did just that...but the voice has grown weaker as our egotistical intellects took charge and declared they are the voice of reason and all else be hanged.
The MUSE started to wane, shrink and eventually totally disappear, especially in the art world. Conceptualism was born where the Intellect had full reign. And our intellect can be smart, chic, fashionable and extremely cunning, it can even pretend to be the MUSE to confuse the unsuspecting artist and make him/her believe it is really the MUSE speaking, but alas it isn't, as many a canvas will will prove because when you look upon the art, although intellectually titillating it does nothing more. It does not bring your senses alive and put fire in your belly, the way a brilliant art piece can.
So how does one know if your intuition is in communicato with your MUSE? It is by the viewer's reaction to your work and the real beauty of the art piece. By beauty I don't mean candy sickly sweet fluffy meaningless bunny ears...I mean an art piece that says all the hard things we need to hear and at the same time can capture your soul with it's beauty. One of my past art teachers, once said, that even if you paint a piece of turd on canvas you need to make it beautiful.
Why? Because it is life, both smelly and beautiful! And if you try to white-wash with neutrality in either direction as minimalism did, you kill everything that was vibrant and alive in the art piece in the first place. It is not enough to plaster a canvas with gobs of bright colours, then give it a smart title...like this young Canadian artist...who has suddenly sprung to fame due to a successful Gallery Owner and great family connections.
Erin Loree - Removing Dirt
Art has lost its meaning when it stopped being born from Intuition, the MUSE gave up awaiting, it's return, and I think maybe in 2017 there is a little crack in it's shell and we will see who are the artists listening and open to its voice.
Then there is Barbara Kroll who speaks volumes with very little effort, because the MUSE does not need perfect renderings to say what it needs to say, just enough to get the message across and painted with minimal amounts of medium.
As an artist in the Industrial Era we also need to consider making a living in the marketplace, and that I think has been our downfall. Instead of listening to our MUSE, we attempted to produce what we think the marketplace will buy, and unfortunately that has become the standard for art collectors buys, often well rendered meaningless kitsch or/and a conceptually titillating idea, that makes us think that it is real art, like the portrait of Trump in the nude recently purchased by some billionaire in England for one million dollars, just so she can say she has it and achieve some fame herself and not because your eyes are riveted and you can not remove them from watching the work because it renders you speechless and in awe!
Here is one of my favourite artists, Egon Schiele with a painting called, 'Mother and Daughter".
It is speaks volumes with simple flowing gestural lines and a few flat shapes of emotive colours.
Art is not just about what appeals to the average joe, it is far more than that, it is transcendent and speaks about things that the average joe hasn't thought of before so that he can can raise himself a bit above his current level of humanity.
Art is the voice of intuition in action.

"Without deep listening and gentle loving speech it is very difficult to move towards peace. Peace will only become a reality, says Thich Nhat Hanh, when world leaders come to negotiations with the ability to hear the suffering at the root of all conflicts." - Thich Nhat Hanh

War does not have to be a requirement of life, a necessary evil according to this Vietnamese Buddhist Teacher. According to him the root of all conflict is ignorance of that the fact that every human being has within him inherent goodness., which Buddhists call "Buddha Nature".

Countries go to war because they imagine that difference is evil, so if I like oranges and you don't there something inherently wrong with you. And I fear you because you are different, because you don't understand that below all the difference we are all the same, with only different personalities and desires and opinions and likes and dislikes, superficial stuff.

Exploitation would not be possible of one person by another if we knew how alike we all really are. When you meet the homeless, mentally ill or less fortunate, remind yourself that they too are "Buddhas". Then it won't be possible for you to abuse or exploit or hate them.
​
If leaders were aware of who they really are and they chose to speak gently with each other and really listen deeply, there would not be any wars.
​

Jeff Koons one of the main representatives of modern art, is still producing kitsch, in fact he is now stealing beautiful traditional art and adding his own brand of cynicism to it. Before that, it was ceramic flying pigs and today he is sticking gazing balls onto traditional paintings by masters, in the vein of Duchamp's toilet, as a work of art but without the subtle irony and intellectual connotation.

Apparently he was enamoured with gazing balls when young and now because he is "famous" can put them willy nilly on a canvas and fetch $150, 000 for each. And to add fuel to the fire, he is referring to these monstrosities as philosophical renderings of eternity! HA, I say!

Koons is just like the guys who think with their balls instead of their brains.

I was hoping to see some more authentic art in the marketplace in the early days of 2017, but here is Koons already cluttering up our minds and space.

But what can be done with idiot Collectors who choose to make him famous and are only hoping to bump up the prices of their investments! UGH!
​
The problem is that professional people like art historians are ignored and uninformed money people are driving the art world.